Dest alt going below planning minima?
 

Interesting news! @ Rat5 The wx at our dest was cavok. At our first alternate it dropped to just below npa minima for a cat 1 airport. But still way above cat 1. The cmd nominated a new alternate above planning minima but we had a little chat afterwards if we could have gone to our first alternate in case we needed to. It was a discussion that arose due to real circumstances but not a question of aircraft safety and airmanship.

Assuming that your ops manual doesn't have anything to the contrary, then legally you could have continued to your destination without any replanning. In fact, you could probably do so even if your destination were zero-zero. EASA has made a concerted effort to avoid "and/or" of late -- this one appears to have slipped through.

But there is, of course, an imperative to do something that is sensible as well as legal. Planning minima are set for a reason -- because forecasts are not perfect, and your skipper was clearly doing something that made good sense as TEM.

Had a 727 flight to Barranquila Columbia and both destination and alternate went below minimums with thunderstorms just over an hour out. We were unable to contact dispatch so got a reroute to Panama City and landed in VMC conditions. I don't know what the legal way to handle it was but sometimes you have to do what makes sense to keep everybody safe.

As an Antipodean wrestling with this issue since the report on the Westwind ditching off Norfolk Island came out, do you blokes have to always plan for an alternate regardless of your destination forecast? I'm more interested in the situation for flights within Europe rather than long haul.

EUOPS OPS 1.295 et seq

Airlines (executives, I mean) are using that rule of the less than 6 hours, VMC, two runways, etc... to eliminate the alternate fuel.

Still, when you do that you need to uplift 15 minutes of Additional fuel.

Some airlines even use that during replanning (typically redistpatch in flight) so that once in flight and withinless than 6 hours to arrive they can eliminate the alternate fuel requirement. I assume they add the 15 min...

Absolutely, not only makes it sense but it's also economical and probably the most efficient way to save fuel on long haul flights. The idea is pretty simple and brilliant at the same time: land with about the same amount of fuel in the tanks after 14 hours flying as after a typical mid range flight, say within 6 hours. It's just a way to reduce a proportionate to flight time amount of contingency fuel to a reasonable end amount by placing a en route re dispatch airport typically within the last quarter of the total distance. In the end it the same whether one lands with 6 tons, 330 let's say, after 5 hours flight or 14 hours. :ok:

Low cost carriers in Europed use or used that "trick" and they had a few taxi in flame outs.

Long range flights are usually to major airports, which all meet the two runway, etc, etc... But they usually get congested without previous notice.

Once again, when it comes to fuel saving measures lime thet, captains have to be very conservative and take positive accion early when ot seems that you will burn more fuel than anticipated. In this case, advise ATC and declare mayday.

In some airlines it is policy to declare emergency even before reaching the final reserve, if it is obvious that you are going to burn a part of ot before landing

-?? Can you substantiate that comment? It means that not only are/were they landing with probably less then 5 mins of fuel remaining but that they would presumably all be on a MAYDAY call? I think we would have noticed!

Years ago, two airplanes from the same company landed in BCN with less than the final reserve. One had declared may day, the other had not. It is the one that did not declare may day the one that got stuck on the taxiway due to fuel starvation.

Maybe someone here can get stuff from that incident and give us a link.